Rookie Danny Walker added two new clubs to the bag this week in what was just his fourth career start on the PGA Tour. So far it’s paid off.
Walker kicked off the Farmers Insurance Open with a seven-under 65 on Wednesday in La Jolla, Calif., vaulting him into a tie for second and two strokes behind first-round leader Ludvig Aberg.
Walker, 29, also played Torrey Pines’ South Course on Wednesday — often the more difficult of the two — and is the only player in the top seven who didn’t start off on the North Course.
Lee Trevino taught me 10 lessons in 38 minutes. Here they are
“It was just fairways and greens,” Walker said. “One of those days where driver was working, really just never forced the issue out there. Was really just trying to hit the middle of the green a lot of times and then rolled in some putts and that’s how I shot a good score. I think I hit every green, which is rare to do, especially on a course that challenging. That’s really what set me up to have a low day. And then made some putts.”
Walker did in fact hit every green in regulation, and he became just the 12th player to do so on the South Course since 1980 (and first since Martin Laird in 2019). But the last-minute changes to his driver and putter were also notable.
He had a driver fitting with Titleist on Sunday and put a new one in the bag for this week, and he also swapped in a different putter on Tuesday, a new Scotty Cameron blade.
“It just has a dot on top,” Walker said. “It helped me really just free up my stroke and not try to get my alignment perfect where I could just focus more on my line and the hole and not like the ball and my putter, so that helped a lot to free me up.”
Walker didn’t win on the Korn Ferry Tour last season, but he finished 28th on the points list, which was enough to earn him PGA Tour membership for 2025 (the top 30 received spots). He opened the season with missed cuts at the Sony Open and American Express, although this week’s off to a more promising start.
“Whenever you change to a new tour and move up, it’s always a little bit of an adjustment,” he said. “It’s easy to think you’ve got to work harder, do more, be more perfect. The first two weeks I was definitely just stressing myself out too much. This was the first day I really just got myself to just relax and play golf and enjoy the day, just see targets and hit shots and not worry about too much. A lot of it was just, yeah, getting myself in the right head space, so it took two weeks.”
Walker’s second round on the North Course begins at 12:34 p.m. ET on Thursday. Golf Channel will broadcast the tournament from 3-7 p.m. ET.
